"Oak Creek"

EMORY'S "MILITARY RECONNOISSANCE"

The advanced guard of the "Army of the West" under General Stephen W. Kearny entered Arizona 22 October 1846 on the way to bring California under the American flag. By the time the hundred and ten men reached San Diego it was one of the most tattered and ill-fed detachments of men the United States ever mustered under her colors. The men more than accomplished their mission. In crossing Arizona they filled in a blank in the map of North America. With General Kearny went Lieutenant W. H. Emory of the Topographical Engineers struggling with chonometers, sextants, a syphon barometer, a note book, and drawing materials. The notes and maps Lieutenant Emory made became the basis of "Notes of a Military Reconnoissance from Fort Leavenworth, in Missouri, to San Diego, in California," published in Washington in 1848. As a report and guide book of the West the eminent historian of the American Frontier, Frederick L. Paxson, ranks Lieutenant Emory's work in importance with John C. Fremont's volume on the road to Oregon. The notes are packed with information and vivid pictures of Arizona of a century ago. A state of war with Mexico was recognized by the government in the middle of May, 1846, and on June 6 Lieutenant Emory received orders in Washington to proceed to Saint Louis to join General Kearney as topographer for an expedition to Santa Fe and California. Given twenty-four hours to get his equipment together the Lieutenant was unable to secure portable equipment, and it was not until he reached Fort Leavenworth he was able to secure a cumbersome syphon barometer.Highway 80 lies north of the trail from Coldwater to Gillespie Dam. From Midway to Yuma, Highway 80 is south of the Gila River trail. Every inch of the march presented some obstacle. The mountains arose abruptly in long narrow ridges to block the way. The river bed was either paved with loose fragments of rock that rolled under foot or soft sand the mules sank into up to their knees. When the party was forced to turn south over a mountain to avoid the gorge where Coolidge Dam has been built, Lieutenant Emory christened the trail "The Devil's Turnpike." The whole way was a succession of steep ascents and descents paved with sharp angular fragments of basalt. The metallic clink of spurs, and the rattling of the mule shoes, the high black peaks, the deep dark ravines, and the unearthly looking cacti which stuck out from the rocks like ears of Mephistopheles, all favored the idea they were treading on the region below.

Leaving Fort Leavenworth on June 26 Lieutenant Emory reached Santa Fe August 18 with General Kearny and an army of regulars and volunteers. The forces were split, and on September 26 General Kearny took the advance towards California by the shortest route down the Gila River. Colonel Philip St. George Cook was instructed to follow with the Mormon Batallion and make a wagon road through southern Arizona. Wagons were soon abandoned and Lieutenant Emory's instruments had to be carried on by hand or loaded on the uncertain backs of pack mules. Aiding the Lieutenant in his work of charting the unknown country were Lieutenant W. H. Warner, who made the sketches, J. M. Stanley a draughtsman, and Norman Bestor, who carried the instruments.

If the trail was bad, the scenery was exciting and different. With their heads filled with fables retold from Friar Marcos the men fully expected to find "Casa Montezuma." Once when the Lieutenant turned a sharp hill the bold outline of a castle presented itself, but drawing his telescope Lieutenant Emory was disappointed to find it a clay butte. Near the present town of Kelvin the trail was traversed by a seam of yellowish colored igneous rock shooting up into irregular spires and turrets one or two thousand feet in height. A few miles farther on Lieutenant Emory discovered a high perpendicular cliff of calcareous spar and baked agrillaceous rock which seemed to represent distinctly the flames of a volcano and he named it "Fire Place Rock."

Kit Carson returning from California with a party of fourteen met General Kearny on October 6 and brought news that California had already been captured by Commodore Robert F. Stockton and Captain John C. Fremont. After persuasion, Carson was induced to retrace his steps and guide the column over the little known trail. General Kearny and his men entered Arizona near the present town of Duncan. From Solomonsville they followed the Gila River to present site of Coolidge Dam. From Christmas through Winkelman and Hayden their route paralleled State Highway 77. From Florence, State Highway 287 and a series of local roads to Komatke are close to the Gila River.

Quickly Lieutenant Emory learned to give the army mule the same respect General George Crook gave the homely animal a generation later during the final conquest of the Apaches. Most of the animals traveled the full eighteen hundred miles from Fort Leavenworth. Except for a few saddle mules of the officers every mule was covered with patches, scars, and sores. Two or three times all the mules appeared to be on the eve of death, but the mules' vitality recuperated when life seemed almost extinct. Near the end of the march across Arizona when there was no grass the Lieutenant gave his breakfast of two biscuits to his mule. With the objective of military action in California the soldiers dragged along two howitzers. Small and mounted on wheels ten feet in circumference they went almost everyplace the mules could go. Until the flat plains were reached beyond Florence, the howitzers impeded the march and did not always make camp. The shafts broke and everything that was possible to break about them did. The quartermaster had little to give the men beside coffee and flour for biscuit but the game along the trail through Arizona varied their diet. On reaching the Gila the soldiers waded into the river and caught fish. Gambel's Quail were everywhere and wild hogs were seen. Geese and ducks were